<p>I have a dilemma. I want to major in international relations (and/or a foreign language). Which college would you decide on? Are the foreign language classes at NYU very good ( I noticed they arn't worth any credit, but I heard they are also free...).</p>
<p>Whoa, there. I think that the foreign language programs to which you are referring are those offered through “Speaking Freely”, which is a casual, non-credit, language instruction program offered free to all NYU students. It’s great for brushing up on a language you took in high school before studying abroad, or to explore a language you might be interested in pursuing on a for-credit basis, but definitely does not represent NYU’s foreign language offerings If you go to the College of Arts and Sciences link on NYU’s website and click on “departments and programs” you will see that NYU has eight language departments and 10 language-related area studies programs, with language instruction in everything from the more commonly taught languages, like Spanish, French, German, Italian and Chinese, to a wide range of less commonly offered languages, like Swahili, Hindi, Irish, Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian. Also, NYU participates in a language and area studies consortium with Columbia University, so their offerings are available to NYU students as well. Actually, it would be difficult to come up with a language or dialect that is not offered through the consortium.
As for International Relations, at NYU it is a restricted enrollment honors program that you have to qualify for by GPA and prerequisites, so you should thoroughly check out their website link to compare with BU’s program. Another option to consider is to combine a language major and an area studies major with political science electives to become an area specialist. My daughter chose that path over the IR major because she feels that IR has become such a popular, trendy major that IR grads are now a dime a dozen. If you choose this path, however, you have to commit to it from matriculation or it could take you more than 4 years to get through your language progressions. My daughter combined majors in Romance Languages (Spanish and Italian) and European and Mediterranean Studies with a minor in Middle Eastern And Islamic Studies has been very pleased with the language instruction, breadth of course offerings in the area studies programs, extensive study abroad programs and, especially, with the smaller class sizes you encounter in language and area studies departments as opposed to trendy majors like IR.
Hope this helps. Good luck with your decision.</p>